ECB Biggest Banks

Europe debt crisis: This would give banks some flexibility and suggests that the ECB will at least initially rely heavily on persuasion, according to Euro News. Weighed down by around 900 billion euros of bad debt, banks have delayed fixing this legacy of Europe debt crisis, worried that writeoffs would lead to losses, limiting dividends and also executive pay. The ECB, which supervises 129 of the biggest banks in the euro zone, will eventually set confidential quantitative and qualitative targets but not all will necessarily come in writing, the sources told Reuters. Regulators are keen to give banks a push, however, as a huge stock of bad loans depresses bank valuation, increases funding costs and ultimately holds back economic growth, countering the very stimulus the ECB monetary policy arm is trying to provide. Italy and Greece are among the top laggards. Indeed, the ECB estimates 7.1 percent of euro zone bank loans were not performing at the end of last year, nearly five times the level in the United States. (news.financializer.com). As reported in the news.